Swan Reach Flood and Cemetery South Australia

Swan Reach South Australia

The abundant black swans that used to float on the Murray here gave their name to the district. White occupation began with the pastoralists in the 1850s and 1860s. The first two stations were Swan Reach and Portee. A third soon was settled called Punyelroo. The original Swan Reach homestead was built around 1865 by Eardly Heywood but things changed when the government established a ferry service here in 1898. Just prior to this the station was sold in 1896 to Emma and Paul Hasse from Lobethal. The old homestead was converted into the Swan Reach Hotel which was licensed from 1899 to Emma Hasse. A town was surveyed in 1899 on Paul Hasse’s land with 46 town blocks. The first town blocks were sold in 1900. As the pastoral stations were broken up for wheat farming and smalls scale sheep grazing more people in the district boosted the development of a small town. The district Hall opened in 1902 (the school met here from 1902 to 1917) and the first Council Chamber was built in 1907; around 1902 the first Post Office opened in the general store; in 1904 a general store opened below the Swan Reach Hotel. It is still there but has closed as a general store in 2012. A police station was built in 1911 and the first policeman assigned to the district; a Lutheran manse was erected in 1911 and Lutheran services were held in this house until the church was completed in 1923; a small private hospital opened in 1913; and a fine stone Congregational Church opened in 1914. The town was established. Farmers came from the German settled areas of the Eastern Ranges and English background settlers came from all over the state. The earliest graves in the cemetery appear to date from around 1905. The early days at the port of Swan Reach were busy as local wheat farmers carted their grain and wool to the town for shipment down the Murray to the rail terminal and facilities at Murray Bridge. This river trade ceased once motor trucks became more widespread in usage in the mid 1920s.

In later years the town got a new state school (1917) and a Town Hall/Institute building in 1933. During times of peak flood for the Murray much of the town was flooded, especially in 1917, 1931 and 1956. Swan Reach also had from 1925 the United Aborigines’ Mission along the riverfront. The concept was to provide some housing for displaced Aboriginal children.UAM was the group that ran Colebrook Home at Eden Hills etc. This mission closed down in 1945 when donations from the Gerard family allowed for the purchase of land at Loveday in the Upper Riverland for the establishment of the Gerard Aboriginal Mission. The Gerard Mission was taken over by the State government in 1961 and it was handed over to the Gerard Aboriginal Council in 1974. Not far from Swan Reach is Kroehn’s Landing south towards Walkers Flat. This is an important Aboriginal archaeological site as it was the first archaeological dig site in Australia undertaken in 1929. Work at this site allowed archaeologist to date the Aboriginal occupation along this stretch of the Murray back to 7,000 years ago. At that time this revolutionised archaeological theory about how long Aboriginal people had been in Australia. Today we have evidence of their presence in Australia back to around 65,000 years ago.

Opposite the township of Swan Reach, down on the fertile river flats, is a major historical house - Silver Lea. It was built in 1908 for a local pastoralist James Brown. Brown had had Punyelroo Station for many years but by the late 1880s his holdings were down to 5,000 acres in the Swan Reach district. Then in 1885 James Brown purchased a small 275 acre holding opposite the Swan Reach Station, later hotel. Here he set about building a mansion over four years. The ceilings were imported from France and the floor tiles from Italy. No expense was spared. When James Brown died in 1921 he was buried in the garden of his beloved Silver Lea. His son Andrew Brown took over the small property and house until he sold it in 1933. The house was completely flooded in 1956 and later most of the land was sold off for the Swan Reach golf course. A later owner John George restored the house in 1989 and it is still in excellent condition as a memorial to a prominent founder of the district. Browns Well at Paruna was named after James Brown who had extensive pastoral properties across the Mallee not just near Swan Reach.